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The Center for American Progress reports:
Think a higher minimum wage is a job killer? Think again: The states that raised their minimum wages on January 1 have seen higher employment growth since then than the states that kept theirs at the same rate.
The minimum wage went up in 13 states Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington either thanks to automatic increases in line with inflation or new legislation, as Ben Wolcott reports in his analysis at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The average change in employment for those states over the first five months of the year as compared with the last five of 2013 is 0.99 percent, while the average for all remaining states is 0.68 percent.
Digging deeper, all but one of those states are experiencing increases in employment, and nine of them have seen growth above the median rate.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday July 06 2014, @09:07AM
Oh, excuse me! What I took to be ignorance of economics and scientific method appears to be something much more difficult to reason a person out of.
You can say that, but the original article was arguing the exact opposite, that raising the minimum increases the number of employed persons, and that theoretical explanation of the observable data is just as valid as yours. Once again, results that confirm your biases are not scientific evidence. I am not saying you are wrong, just that you ain't right but there is no way for you to ever see that. You see, if you respond again, you will just be confirming my assumptions about you. Which means that I know you will. Please prove me wrong?
(Score: 2) by khallow on Sunday July 06 2014, @02:09PM
Their data doesn't confirm their conclusions. For example, there was an obvious difference [soylentnews.org] in employment growth between the 4 states that had impromptu increases in minimum wage in 2013 and the 9 states that had predictable inflation-adjustment increases in minimum wage. This difference was significantly larger than the difference between states which had increased minimum wage and those that didn't. The 4 states with impromptu increases actually fared worse, for what that's worth, than the states which had no change in minimum wage.
Second, their data is very limited. Choosing a particular 10 month span in which to study this problem is very susceptible to cherry picking of data. While the increased levels of unemployment among young adults and minorities spans a significantly larger period of time.
Third, they don't have a model for why this works. It's just magic thinking without a basis for why anything should work the way they want it to. OTOH, supply and demand provides a simple model which explains why raising the minimum wage results in a drop in demand for labor at that level. For example, it's not worth paying someone $8 per hour to do a job which delivers $7 per hour. That simple model also explains why the developing world with its large supply of cheap labor is getting most of the new jobs in the world.
There's also secondary effects. If you're not worth employing at minimum wage, then how are you going to get the sort of job experience and such required in order to be worth more? At least in the absence of a minimum wage, you can work for less in order to get valuable job experience and demonstrate that you can hold down a job. That's appealing to employers at that level of the economy who will pay more for someone who can show that they're a good worker than someone who is a complete unknown, perhaps with a criminal record or other negative parts of their lives.
Sure, there is. Rational argument. Dumping a bunch of dogma as fact doesn't convince anyone who wasn't already convinced.
And innuendo too. I cited evidence of groups that face considerably higher levels of unemployment than the general population. What they have in common is factors that are effected by minimum wage laws. If I'm considering an ex-felon or a young adult with no job record for employment at a minimum wage job, then I take less risk, if the minimum wage is lower than if it is higher.